Quem suscitavit a Mortuis
by Tara Laurel
Summary: "Back from the Dead". Based on Tumblr post: "I want to see what John looked like when they told him that Sherlock died...when someone ran out and called for the doctor to come back in quick his heart started back up..." Oneshot of John in the waiting room and how he deals with the possibility of losing his best friend, again.


**TITLE: Quem suscitavit a Mortuis (Back from the Dead)**

**RATING: **T (language, content)

**A/N: **Inspired by post on Tumblr from gaytectives. Just a little something because her post had me near tears and I had to write something to get the feels out before they burned me up from the inside.

_Please read and review, many thanks._

**DISCLAIMER: **I do not own Sherlock.

He couldn't do this.

Not again.

He couldn't stand by, helplesss - useless - as his best friend was -

_No._ He wouldn't say it. Wouldn't think it.

Sherlock Holmes wasn't going to die today.

Not this time.

He had cheated death before. John had to believe the man could do it again.

He had to do it again.

_Damn it!_

John clenched his fist, barely resisting the sudden and strong impulse to punch through the hospital waiting room wall.

_I'm a bloody doctor! I'm his friend! I should be in there! I should be doing something!_

_Anything._

Instead, John Watson was forced to sit and wait like everyone else.

Of course, he wasn't exactly sitting.

He had been slumped over in a chair for a time frame he couldn't quite place, just sitting and staring. And then just like that he was up and on his feet and wearing away the flooring.

He needed Mary.

He needed Sherlock.

He needed -

John whirled around and planted his feet firmly at attention at the sound of the doors swinging open.

And there it was.

John was a doctor. He didn't need anything else to know the truth. One single second long glance into the stranger's eyes had told him everything John needed to know.

_Dead._

Again.

But this time it was real. Sherlock wasn't sneaking off to some secluded part of the world. He wouldn't come back and make some horribly timed and tasteless, tactless, terrifying - and oh so joyous - surprise return from the grave.

He didn't wait for the platitude that he had so often handed out before. He didn't need to hear them. Didn't want to hear them.

_"We did everything we could."_

_"I'm sorry."_

_"There were complications."_

_"There was nothing more that could've been done."_

_"I'm sorry."_

_"His injuries were too extensive."_

_"I'm sorry."_

He didn't want the man to be sorry. He didn't want anyone to be _sorry _for him. Because if they were sorry, then there was something to be sorry _for. _If they were sorry then Sherlock was, Sherlock was -

It hit him like the bullet from the insurgent's gun all the way back those years ago in Afghanistan.

Another lifetime ago.

A lifetime without Sherlock.

And now he would be forced to enter another life without him.

John wasn't quite sure exactly when he started to stumble and stagger, but eventually he was toppling over sideways. The doctor stepped forward and steadied the swaying man.

John didn't push the stranger away. He hardly reacted at all. He was far too busy staring at the blood. The man in the discolored scrubs was decorated in the scarlet substance. Not just any blood. Sherlock's blood.

He had seen similar spatter before. After - that day. On the sidewalk. It had been fake then. Maybe -

John reached out a tentative hand before he even could fully grasp what he was doing. His fingers gingerly brushed the liquid. _Still warm_.

_No._

_No. No. No._

He wouldn't believe it. He couldn't believe it.

"Let me see him," John's voice lacked the strength and command he had been trying to muster behind it.

"I'm sorry, sir -"

"I'm a doctor," John swallowed and tried to sidestep the stranger. "Let me through. Let me see him. Let me see!"

"Sir, please, calm down."

John was grappling with the doctor now. If he had been in his right mind he probably would have put the man right on his back. He had to look upon his fallen friend with his own eyes. To touch his skin. To feel the absence of a pulse, of life.

"No! I have to see him! I have to! I have to know! Just let me see him!"

"You can see him when we've cleaned him up," the doctor promised, pushing the spiraling man backwards and then gently down into a chair.

John's body crashed into the seat. It was hardly a drop, and yet John felt he was falling. Cascading down and down, farther and farther into this dark and cold abyss. It took him several moments to remember how to breathe. How to think.

The doctor took a significant step back to allow the grieving man to breathe.

_Big mistake._

John was upright and marching toward the doors before the doctor had time to register what had happened. He was pushing his way through when a white coated man appeared beside him.

"Sir, you can't go in there."

By now, both men were futilely trying to hold the raging man back.

"I'm a _bloody_ doctor!"

"We understand that, but -"

"No, you don't. I'm John Watson, former bloody doctor in the British Army. Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. Three years in Afghanistan, a veteran of Kandahar, Helmand, and Bart's Hospital. Now, let. Me. Through."

John's words were cold and controlled. The voice of a military captain. The voice, of a person about to break. Whether that was himself, or the next person that stood in his way, was unsure.

Before another word could be spoken, the doors burst open and a weary woman nearly collided with the trio.

"Doctor!" She panted as her wide eyes found the first man John had spoken with. "You better come quick! The patient - I've never seen - he - his hearts beating!"

The doctor's eyes flashed to John for only a fraction of a second before all three of the hospital staff were bounding back through the doors.

John's legs felt as though they had evaporated completely. He wasn't quite sure how he made it back to a chair in time before he crumpled down into it. He was falling again. But this time it was a good sort of weightlessness. There was no abyss. Only hope. Overwhelming, burning, indescribable hope.

Sherlock wasn't a man to do anything halfway. When he learned a new skill or concept, he studied it inside and out, upside and down, and usually had it mastered within a few hours. If he faked his death, well then he did it with flair and flawless accuracy. And if he came back to life, he wouldn't go back down so easily.

John didn't need to follow them now. He no longer needed to see Sherlock.

He knew.

Sherlock had come back from the dead.

Again.

Sitting there, with no one to see, John Watson, the stiff upper lipped Englishman, the soldier - the friend - sobbed tears of joy into the palms of his shaking hands.


End file.
